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Education and Skills Bill

It is a great honour to speak on Report of this historic Bill to raise the education and training leaving age to 18, and also to move new clause 14 to strengthen the schools admissions code, which I believe is a vital part of the reforms to our education system that we must put in place to make this whole Bill a success. I should like to start by commending Committee members and all the outside experts on the high quality of scrutiny and debate that the Bill received in Committee. I very much enjoyed studying the details of those discussions. This is a landmark piece of legislation; it is the biggest reform in educational participation for more than 50 years and the culmination of this House's century-long ambition to deliver educational opportunity for all young people. In Committee, it was widely recognised by Members from all parts of the House that our wider education reforms—those to qualifications, the curriculum, information and guidance, schools and schools admissions—were all necessary steps to take over the next few years to bring our education system into line with the highest performing education systems in the world and to ensure that all our young people have the skills that they need to succeed in the fast-moving global economy. Our goal is not simply to preserve opportunity and excellence for some, but to deliver it for all. We recognise that excellence for all demands both that every school is a good school and that every parent should have a fair chance to get their child into a school of their choosing. It is to deliver the goal that every school should be a good one that our national challenge programme will aim to lift all schools above the 30 per cent. threshold in respect of five GCSEs at grades A to C, including English and Maths.